We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

I agree that feral hogs are dangerous to kids in some situations. I hope the trapping works. If not, I suggest an AR15 or AR10.

A friend who used to teach here was a gourmet chef and he swore that feral hog was the best pork he ever tasted. I want to try it and have offered to hunt feral hogs for anyone around here who needs them culled.

Meyer and Sullivan used consumption data, and again they set up the calculation so that the poverty rate for consumption data is the same as the poverty rate for income data as of 1980…By this measure, the poverty rate almost reaches zero percent in 2007, before the Great Recession.

My primary issue with the Atlantic article on the poor is addressed by JKB, above. Define 'poor'. We have a massive problem with SNAP, though nobody can really define what it is. Why has SNAP usage grown so much during the recession?

Sure, a portion is because people can't find work. But that's not the only reason.

The issue we should REALLY be discussing is the overlaying of benefits from different agencies, without any means of checking who is double-dipping or getting more than is reasonable.

All welfare or transfer payment to individuals, no matter what it is (SNAP, WIC, SocSec, Obamaphone, etc.) should all be managed through one agency, via one database, and with a predetermined set of rules.

Living like it's 1970 is not 'poor'. Relative to today, yes, it's 'poor'. But it's not. It's just not as generous and easy.

All welfare should be managed through one agency and there should be some better way to find and prevent fraud waste and abuse in the system. But make no mistake the various welfare programs are intentionally distributed amongst the many federal departments so that accountability is virtually impossible. congress is inept. They pass laws that get loaded with pork contradictory and confusing wording and essentially leave the actual "law making" to bureaucrats who unchecked create mountains of rules and regulations many of which are often contrary to the laws intent and sometimes contrary to the laws specific language. The EPA is the worst offender in this and is so corrupt it should be abolished. If our congress were savvy intelligent lawmakers who intended to destroy the American dream and the middle class they probably couldn't do better then they have done by merely being incompetent.

Yoga: everything we've been told is completely safe isn't, and what's dangerous may well not be.

Venezuela has made the TP shortage even shorter. I can see employees smuggling it out for family and the black market, and company execs funneling output to the pols and gummint employees. What will happen if the TP workers strike?

Thunderstorms--less likely in winter, more likely in spring/summer/fall--MUST be AlGorebull Worming at fault.

Yoga: A close friend of my wife has been doing yoga for years. She confided to my wife that several years ago her doctor told her to stop or she would end up needing surgery. She ignored his advice. Last month she had her second hip replacement. Whether or not this was cause-and-effect, no more yoga for her.

Too, too bad we could not purse criminal charges against the major New York players in the banking/real estate debacle of the past 10 years!!! Nope -- they are a protected class, sooo what happens is that all the other mean and nasties find a way to jump on the same train with the same sort of free pass to do whatever they want. We have got to get to a place where New York bankers can be held accountable in a court of law just like anyone else.

"the banking/real estate debacle of the past 10 years" is not the fault of bankers it can be traced back to Clinton, Barney Frank and Chris Dodd (and other Democrats). They created the situation, fought hard to prevent Bush from fixing the problem that developed from their legislation and then ran for cover once the bubble burst. The Bankers didn't cause the problem. As for the article in Salon.com I would say look at the source.

The Unaffordable Health Care Act: If you don't want to buy health care insurance and don't want to pay the law's odious "tax penalty", DON'T. Ignore it. Until (if ever) the law is changed, the IRS can't fine you, it can't sue you, and it can't throw you in jail for ignoring the individual mandate. If you should someday need insurance to pay a huge upcoming medical bill, you can't be denied last minute coverage. The way to defeat Obamacare is to adopt the tactics of Saul Alinsky: make the totalitarians live up to their promises until the system they've installed breaks.

I'm so confused.
Can someone explain to me the statistical odds that I'm going to get pregnant? I keep trying to do the math, and all I keep coming up with is 100% of zero. So why do I need an individual insurance policy that covers pregnancy? Is Washington the only state that has this problem of guys getting pregnant? Is it a country wide problem I missed somehow? Birthing centers overwhelmed by uninsured expectant men? Maybe there were too many back alley uninsured births that caused this to be included. Beats me.
In the name of equality? We can't rate men and women separately anymore?

Can't really calculate the odds you'll get pregnant but it seems a near certainty you are going to experience the prelude. Well, actually the way the prelude is going to happen, your chances of getting pregnant will be non-existent.

The botched execution of the Czar and his family was quite interesting. I was quite surprised the women were still carrying all those gemstones at that point.

Does anyone know if there was a reason why the Czar and his family stayed in Russia after he abdicated? Would no other royal house in Europe take him in or was he ignorant of the perils of remaining in Russia?

Nicholas was well aware of the danger, but no other country would take him. The British government initially agreed to give asylum, but, on the advice of King George V, who was Nicholas's first cousin, the offer was withdrawn. George's motivation was that anti-monarchist revolution was sweeping Europe and he did not want Great Britain and his family caught up in it. He believed that having Nicholas and Alexandra in Britain would encourage British anti-monarchists because the traditionally autocratic Russian monarchy was unpoplar in Britain and Alexandra was originally a German princess. Germans so unpopular during WWI that the British royal family name of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha was changed to the more English sounding House of Windsor. The Battenburg family became the Mountbatten and assumed the title of Marquess of Milford Haven.
As for the jewelry, Alexandra had made long term plans to escape, and had directed that as many jewels as she could save be sewn into the corsets of her and her daughters. That is why, when the executioners fired directly at their torsos, the bullets literally bounced off.

"The Nagant M1895 was chambered for a proprietary cartridge, 7.62x38R..."

Which round, given even a modicum of powder, at fifteen feet would brush through a layer of loosely sewn jewels and corset stays like a knife through butter. And let's not forget the bayonets unable to penetrate... not a plausible scenario in my opinion.

Agreed that you can't trust the word of the commies. Immediately after the murders and for some years afterwards, multiple versions of what happened that night circulated. However, all agree that some or most of the victims survived the first volley. All note that bullets fired at supposedly point blank range didn't seem to penetrate and that some of the more superstitious among the murderers thought that it signified the divine protection that supposedly had invested the Imperial Family, though after the assasinations of Alexander II and Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich one would think that this would begin to wane. An alternative explanation could be that they were drunk and there was too much smoke and they just didn't shoot straight. One narrative states that Anastasia was bayonetted to death because she had survived attempts to shoot her, but most of the others indicate that the Bosheviks didn't figure out about the jewels until they stripped the bodies and the jewels fell out, which they promptly tried to steal. Yurovsky had to promise to shoot anybody else who tried.

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